1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an electronic controller including an electronic circuit board carrying a pin header mounted thereon, which is received within a casing, and to a method of manufacturing the electronic controller.
2. Description of the Related Art
An electronic controller used to control a vehicle or the like generally includes electronic components such as an input/output circuit, a communication circuit, a microcomputer, and a power supply circuit, which are mounted on an electronic circuit board. In addition, a connector for connection to an external device is also provided on the electronic circuit board. The electronic circuit board, on which the electronic components and the connector are mounted, is received within a casing.
In the electronic controller, the electronic circuit board is sandwiched between a base and a cover formed integrally with the connector. The base and the cover are vertically separated from one another. Surfaces of the base and the cover, which are brought into contact with each other, are bonded by a water-proof sealing material or the like.
Further, there is known a connector, which is manufactured as follows. A pin header formed by inserting terminals into a pedestal made of a resin and a housing which surrounds distal end portions of the terminals are configured as independent bodies. Only the pin header is mounted in advance on the electronic circuit board. Thereafter, the housing is assembled at a position corresponding to the pin header. In this manner, the connector is manufactured (see Japanese Patent Application Laid-open No. Hei 02-66865, for example).
The following electronic controller and method of assembling the electronic controller are also known. Specifically, through the application of the above-mentioned technology to a structure of the electronic controller described above, the pin header is mounted in advance onto the electronic circuit board. The electronic circuit board is sandwiched between the base and the cover formed integrally with the housing of the connector. Then, the surfaces of the base and the cover, which are brought into contact with each other, are bonded by the water-proof sealing material.
For the electronic controller having the configuration described above, however, the pin header is necessarily required to be prevented from interfering with the cover when the electronic circuit board having the pin header mounted thereon is assembled to the cover formed integrally with the housing. Therefore, there is a problem in that an opening direction of the connector is necessarily restricted to a vertical direction with respect to a mounting surface of the electronic circuit board.
Moreover, in the case of a connector having a structure in which the distal end portions of the terminals inside the housing are located relatively on a far side, the opening direction of the connector can be sometimes exceptionally set to a horizontal direction with respect to the mounting surface of the electronic circuit board as long as the pin header does not project from an outer shape of the electronic circuit board. However, there is a restriction depending on the shape of the connector to be used. Therefore, there is a problem in that selectable connectors are extremely limited.